First responders work the scene of a derailment of a Metro-North passenger train in the Bronx on Dec. 1. / Craig Ruttle, AP

by Theresa Juva-Brown, The (Westchester County, N.Y.) Journal News

by Theresa Juva-Brown, The (Westchester County, N.Y.) Journal News

WHITE PLAINS, N.Y. -- About one-third of Metro-North cab cars - including the one engineer William Rockefeller was driving during Sunday's fatal derailment - are not equipped with advanced alert systems, which are used to keep operators focused and have been recommended by the National Transportation Safety Board after other train accidents.

Of the 996 cab cars used to drive Metro-North's fleet, 331 are equipped with what's called a "dead man's switch," a pedal the operator must keep pressed to keep the train moving. The remaining 665 cab cars in Metro-North's fleet have such "alerter" systems. With that system, if the engineer doesn't respond to beeping signals at certain intervals, the train's brakes are activated.

"All new cars will have alerters" in order to comply with Federal Railroad Administration regulations, said Metro-North spokeswoman Margie Anders.

Because the cab car in Sunday's derailment was purchased in 2002 - before FRA regulations went into effect - it was not required to have an alerter system, Anders said. The locomotive that was pushing the train south and would have been used to pull it on the northbound trip did have one.

"I would think that wherever there is driver, there should be an alerter. That just makes sense," said Augustine Ubaldi, a railroad engineer at a consulting firm, Robson Forensic, in Ohio. "Why do you have this system in place in the locomotive? Are you only putting it in there because of the federal regulation or because you trying to enhance safety?"

A union official has said Rockefeller apparently dozed or lost focus at the controls before his train went off a sharp curve on the southbound tracks near the Spuyten Duyvil station in the Bronx, killing four passengers and injuring scores of others.

A Metro-North spokeswoman confirmed Thursday that Rockefeller has been "taken out of service" and is not being paid.

The NTSB said Monday the train was traveling 82 mph as it entered a 30 mph zone and just before it derailed.

The agency, which has released few details on the derailment, citing the ongoing investigation, has endorsed alerters in the past. In 2007, the NTSB concluded that crew fatigue contributed to the fatal head-on collision between two freight trains in Anding, Miss., in 2005. Investigators said in their final report that alerters could have helped prevent it.

The agency has also been a strong supporter of positive train control, a more robust and sophisticated sensor system that can adjust the train's speed automatically. The FRA has given the railroad a 2015 deadline to implement PTC.

Charlie Coursen, the nephew of Jim Lovell, one of the four passengers who died in Sunday's derailment, said he doesn't put the blame squarely on Rockefeller.

"It wasn't the failure of one person, it wasn't the failure of one train car, it was the failure of the system," Coursen said, adding that "something should have been in place to stop the engine from speeding."